Speech pathologists do remarkable work. Their healing and communication capacities include clarity of speaking, also swallowing, vocabulary and sentence structure. They also attend to clients with neurological conditions or who use electronic communication devices.

This holistic care is highlighted in Mark’s story of the man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. People brought the man to Jesus in hope, we are told, and Jesus ‘took him aside in private, away from the crowd’. Jesus is intensely and personally engaged in the physical and personal healing of the man.

Mark may be desiring to emphasise that Jesus’ identity is more than a healer, that he has come not only for the Jews but also for the Gentiles and that his cross and resurrection will reveal his mission’s fullness.

But the people’s astonishment and joy for the man restored to fuller participation in life overwhelm Mark’s caution about Jesus’ true identity: the Kingdom has come; how can we be quiet about it! As the hymn, based on Psalm 96, and first written in 1868, proclaims: ‘How can I keep from singing?’

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, you put your finger into the man’s ears and spitting, touched his tongue, then looked up to your Father in Heaven and sighed and said to him, ‘Be opened’. I ask you today to open my ears to hear your Word and to free my tongue so that my words and actions give witness to your compassion and power. Amen. 

By Peter Webb